


V'Day & A New Hope

by GeezPlz



Category: Star Wars
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Retail, Awkward Romance, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-14
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-03-31 04:43:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13967571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GeezPlz/pseuds/GeezPlz
Summary: a short AU Valentine's Day story (a month after the fact) about a Finn in deep denial





	V'Day & A New Hope

“So,” Poe started, “you got any plans for tonight?”

“Tonight?” Finn echoed back at the dark-haired boy leaning over his check-out counter. He was clueless.

Poe straightened himself up and gestured around the store; the pink and red displays; the heart symbol motif on the store’s decorations. It was obvious. “Valentine’s Day, duh.”

“Oh! Uh…” Despite the decorations that have surrounded for weeks, all thoughts of the holiday had escaped him.

Poe rolled his eyes and sighed, faking annoyance. “God, your head’s as thick as your ass, dude,” he said plainly, a smirk creeping up one corner of his mouth.

Luckily there were no customers around to hear Poe’s _totally obscene_ language… or spot Finn looking like a flustered fool in lust.

_Straight guy humor_ , Finn thought. _A gay would never be so straightforward. At least, not off the apps_. The Apps; the various cellphone applications Finn traversed looking for love. Or maybe just a nice date. Some company…? At least someone he could share good music suggestions with. Whatever the case, he couldn’t find the boldness within himself to search out one-night stands or sex-on-demand with someone he never knew. He wasn’t ready for it. He wasn’t ready for The Apps. He wasn’t ready for any of it. Although, Finn’s impulsive thoughts made him think he was ready to be straddled across the check-out counter’s conveyor belt by his coworker on an otherwise dull day. But he kept that to himself. “You got any plans?” he asked.

“Nah,” Poe answered. He had moved around to reorganizing a display of stuffed animals customers had left in ruin.

There was a moment of silence where Finn took in the time to study the way Poe’s shirt creased and wrinkled across his back as he moved. The way his buttocks were cupped by pants that fit in just the right way. All Finn could do was stare.

“We should just be each other’s Valentines,” said Poe abruptly. He was holding one of the bigger stuffed bears.

“What?” Finn said with a laugh. He had heard Poe clearly but convinced himself he hadn’t. He couldn’t see his coworker’s face, just a head full of dark hair. Just then, a cheery elderly woman greeted them with a cart full of merchandise, heading for Finn’s cash register.

“Hello,” Finn greeted her with a friendly smile, “do you have a membership card with us?”

“I don’t think I do, but my son does,” the lady answered. “Could you try looking up Ben Solo?”

“Sure thing, but could I get a phone number?”

The lady recited the phone number before leading into another question. “Do you have any Valentine’s Day plans for tonight?”

“I don’t,” Finn answered, feeling a little more discouraged having to answer that question a second time.

As Finn handed her the receipt, the lady held on to his hand with a little more strength than he expected and leaned in closer. “You should go for it,” she said with a lowered voice, pointing at Poe who was dealing with another customer. She released his hand and stuffed her receipt into her purse. “It’s a new kind of world, isn’t it?” she said with a wink before carting off.

* * *

 

The thoughts ran through Finn’s head all day. The thought of him and Poe being one another’s Valentine. The thought of being _with_ Poe. The thought of being able to call himself Poe’s boyfriend or calling Poe his boyfriend. The thought of them being lovers in space, fighting as part of some rebellion fleet against an evil empire in some grand war amongst the stars. The thought of them being back on Earth and Poe leaving him for someone more exciting and daring and sarcastic as he is, instead of sticking it out with some idiot that lives in his own head. A multitude of universes and possibilities existed in Finn’s daydreams even if the reality of them were only possible in a galaxy far, far away. Some were good, some were bad, but Finn knew deep down that none of them were possible. In this world he was just another gay black boy with a tragic straight boy crush. One of the types of tragic crushes that had him reading a little too much into every prolonged stare and every sexualized quip Poe made. The elderly lady might have given Finn a new hope for a split second, but in the end he knew it wasn’t possible.

Still, that didn’t stop Finn from telling his roommate everything that occurred in flourishing detail.

“I mean, maybe she’s right,” his roommate said in-between chews of bread and peanut butter, “maybe he wants to bang.”

“He’s straight, Rey,” Finn responded matter-of-factly.

“How do you know?” Rey retorted.

“I just do. He talks about girls all the time.”

“And that makes him straight? Oh, the bi-erasure!” Rey exclaimed with faked dramatics. “He mentions your ass like every other day according to you. He probably doesn’t **want** to mention other guys around you.”

Finn allowed himself to be persuaded. “I mean… maybe… he could be bi?”

“Finally! We’re getting somewhere.”

“But that doesn’t mean he’s interested in me.”

“Oh, God.” Rey felt defeated but decided to give it one last chance. She walked from the kitchen over to the couch where her roommate sat and gripped his face. “Look. You’re super fuckin’ cute. You have a great body and your ass is something I could never get with a million squats. Believe in your hotness, Finn. Ok?”

“Ok,” was all that Finn could muster staring into Rey’s intense eyes.

Rey made her way back to the kitchen to take out her protein shake before Finn could start again.

“But what if he rejects me?” Finn asked.

Rey sighed. “Finn, I wish I had the time to force you to awaken to your hotness, but I’m already going to be late for rock climbing with Rose.” She headed for the door. “Bye! Believe in your hotness!”

* * *

 

With Rey gone, Finn was back to streaming his shows. He was two hours into binge watching when a knock came at the door. He didn’t expect Poe to be standing there.

“Hey!” said an enthusiastic Poe.

“Hey…” Finn responded unenthusiastically, betraying the pounding in his chest. “Wh-what are you doing here?”

“I was bored.” Poe shrugged, his hands stuffed in the pockets of his leather jacket, and he swayed a little. It made him look coy and perhaps a bit bashful, a different image from how he usually appears; a new Poe for Finn to fall in love with.

Finn wasn’t sure how to respond.

“Clearly you are too,” Poe continued. The usual smirk appeared and the same old Poe returned. Then he revealed the two items he held in his pockets: a folded piece of lined paper and a super small toy bear. He handed them to Finn. “Be each others Valentines?”

* * *

 

Even as they sat side-by-side on the train the two boys didn’t talk much, spending the ride on their phones. Finn sat in the seat closest to the window while Poe sat with his feet in the walk space, hunched over with his back to his Valentine.

Earlier while getting dressed in a rush, Finn had unfolded the piece of paper—which he assumed to be a substitute for a card—and taken a picture of the message NOT AS BIG AS YOUR ASS ☹ written on it. He figured it was a reference to the tiny bear. He sent the image to the text group chat with Rey and Rose, along with a selfie him and Poe took standing at the apartment door before leaving. Poe made him take it.

_Is that the guy we all went to the movies with that one time?_ Rose asked

_Yea_ , Finn responded

_FUUUUCK HIMMMMM_ , wrote Rey.

_Yes! Do it!_ Rose concurred. They were colluding with each other.

_I’ll be sure to stay out a little longer_ , Rey added with a wink.

Finn responded with an eye roll emoji.

After a moment Rose and Rey sent a video of them still at the rock climbing gym. Without earphones or checking the volume Finn made the fatal mistake of pressing play.

“Oh, my _gooood_! You guys are _soooo cuuutteee_!” Rose exclaimed, overacting.

“Totally!” said Rey matching her energy.

Finn wasn’t fast enough to stop the video right away but with panicked adrenaline paused it before it got any further; he wasn’t sure if the “fuck!” he let out was said aloud or was just in his head.

Poe laughed and turned around. “Are those your friends?”

Finn wasn’t sure how to play it off. “Ha. Yeah.”

“One of them is Rey right? Your roommate that we went to the movies with that one time?”

“Yeah.”

“I follow her on Instagram. She’s cute.”

“Yeah.” Finn was feeling discouraged again.

“Have you guys ever, like… been _together_?” Poe looked directly at him with a raised eyebrow.

Finn was taken aback. “As a couple? Oh, no. No, no, no.”

“I see. Ok.” Finn stared straight-ahead—too nervous to look at his phone anymore, bearing the silence without distraction.

“Me and Rose did, uh, date,” he finally let out. “But then…” _But then I realized I was gay_ , he thought. “We broke up.”

“That sucks,” Poe replied.

“Eh. It was two years ago,” said Finn unbothered.

Suddenly, the train creaked to a stop.

“Looks like this is where we get off,” said Poe. He got up but then turned around and pointed the back of his phone at Finn. “Wait—let me get a picture of you.”

Before Finn could protest, or even prepare, Poe took his picture.

* * *

 

As much as Finn’s wandering fantasies wanted to imagine a beautiful candlelit dinner with his pretend-Valentine, something less formal and intimate was right up the alley of reality. So it didn’t shock him at all when Poe took him to a sports bar. They were just “hanging out” after all.

“Two more lonely dudes to join the club, eh?” joked the waiter.

Finn let out a pathetic smile while Poe laughed.

“We got each other though, right?” said Poe with a wink at Finn.

“Have you guys ever eaten at Wookiees?” the waiter asked. Both boys answered no and the waiter ran down the list of specials he memorized. “So what’ll it be, boys?”

Before answering, Finn spotted something in one of the corners. Something very hairy and tall. “Wait—what’s that?” he asked.

“Oh yeah, that’s our mascot, Chewbacca,” said the waiter.

“Everybody loves him.”

“He’s awesome,” said Poe with a laugh. He had turned around to get a good view of the thing and then turned back to Finn, beaming. “Dude, I need a picture of you with it for Instagram.”

After a shared plate of hot wings and fries Poe made Finn stand by Chewbacca.

“Wait,” said Poe before snapping a picture. He took off his leather jacket and handed it to Finn. “Wear this.”

Finn put it on without protest. It felt good.

Poe smirked. “Now you look badass.”

After taking a picture that satisfied Poe, the two left Wookiees and were immediately hit with a strong rush of cold wind. It was then Finn remembered he had on Poe’s jacket.

“What are you doing?” asked Poe as he stared at Finn.

Finn had stopped in his tracks and was trying to remove Poe’s jacket. “Your jacket—”

“I have long sleeves so I’m fine,” said Poe. “You’re the one that rushed out of your apartment in short sleeves.” He laughed to Finn’s detriment. “Keep it on, it suits you.”

Finn wanted to text Rey and Rose so badly right away but decided living in the moment with Poe was better.

“Aren’t you glad you came out with me?” Poe asked. “Instead being by all yourself.”

“Yeah,” said Finn, “I’m glad we got to hang out.”

“See? I’m not such a bad Valentine, am I?” Finn smiled.

“I guess you could say that…”

“You guess?”

“Well, what is this? All of this? Taking me out, calling me your Valentine, giving me stuff? I can’t tell if this is just you being an overly friendly straight guy or what! It’s throwing off my gay.” Finn had hit his limit. He couldn’t live in the fantasy anymore and needed to know what was real or he might explode. “I don’t know if it makes you uncomfortable or not but I’m gay and I—”

“It doesn’t make me uncomfortable,” Poe interrupted. “And I’m bi. And I like you.”

Finn was at a loss for words. “Really?”

“What, you never realized?” The smirk appeared again. “Really.”

“I don’t know. I thought it was all just jokes.”

There was a pause before Poe’s confession came. “I wanted to get you a bigger bear but by time I got off the clock they were all gone. The biggest one, actually. And a card too but I couldn’t find one that I liked from the ones that were left. I wasn’t sure if you’d really be into it—into me—and I talked myself out of it a million times up until the last minute. But I figured if I didn’t make it so serious then you’d be up for it.”

Finn couldn’t believe that this was his reality. The boy he liked, liked him.

Poe let out a laugh. “I checked for restaurants while we were waiting for the train. That’s how we ended up at Wookiees.”

Despite the last minute, spur of the moment results. Finn couldn’t be happier with all that Poe had done for him. He figured he should do something for Poe and take the next step. “So,” he started, “you want to be my boyfriend?”

* * *

 

The next day was the first time Finn hated that he had the day off from work. What was worse was that Poe _was_ working so he couldn’t spend the night and was probably too busy to text at the moment. All Finn could do this early in the morning was lay in bed, thoughts stuck on Poe.

Suddenly, Rey rushed into his room. “Finn! Check Instagram!”

“I don’t have an Instagram, Rey,” Finn replied.

“Here, check mine!” Rey handed Finn her phone.

It was on Poe’s page. When Finn pressed on the latest picture—a picture of himself and Chewbacca—he found out it was a set of photos. Rey excitedly instructed him to scroll sideways. The next picture was him with eyes wide open; the picture Finn wasn’t prepared to take. The third picture the selfie him and Poe took at the apartment door—with an added filter of floating pink hearts. The last picture a close up of their hands entwined in one another’s on their train ride back home.

The caption Poe had written: “V’Day with the boi ♡”

Finn beamed extra hard. This was his reality.

**Author's Note:**

> ((wanted to make it explicit but couldn't figure out how to get to that part~*~))


End file.
